The latest Hitwise analysis shows that Facebook passed Google a few weeks ago as the most visited web site in the U.S. During the holiday season this year Facebook inched closer and at times surpassed Google’s weekly market share of visits. And finally in mid-March, Facebook clipped Google as the web’s most-visited web site. If you look at the trend and Facebook’s rise in popularity you can quickly forecast a predictable continuation of this phenomenon. But, will Facebook hit a ceiling? Will Google’s Facebook-like application Google Buzz generate similar success?

How will advertisers respond to the shift in online share of voice?

The interactive revolution and Web 2.0 have been going on for sometime and, in my opinion, the allocation of ad dollars will continue in Facebook and Google. Google’s core business as a search engine is not going away anytime soon since it’s a unique value proposition that Facebook does not offer. Additionally, Google’s search engine continues to evolve in response to search behavior and data insights. This proactive mindset allows Google to remain top of mind for searchers and marketers.

On the other hand, Facebook continues to attract members and these members are getting hooked. They’re beginning to interact with the site in numerous ways and the opportunities appear limitless. This new shift in online usage is impacting how marketers think. The social space is a clear departure from the classic four Ps of marketing and instead focuses on permission, proximity, perception, and participation. These social media marketing factors are very different in nature compared to search engine marketing. Search marketing seeks to capitalize on understanding the psychology of humans seeking to bring order to information as they seek navigational, informational and transactional information. Again, very different but the two approaches are beginning to blend.

What does this mean in context of Facebook’s rise as the most visited web site? Can Facebook blend their social community product with search capabilities and rich content to compete more directly with Google? They certainly can. They are clearly in a new position to leverage their web traffic to capture a greater market share for ad dollars. It will be interesting to see how marketing performance from this channel compares to search marketing as they both deliver different user experiences.

For more information regarding online marketing strategies, please call Luca Angeli at Wayfinder at 415-277-6968.

Successful online marketing starts with a strategic process backed with data insights. Have you wondered who owns web analytics data in your organization? Does more than one team member use the data? Are they talking to each other to understand different perspectives and opportunities? Most often they are not. This is where web analytics governance comes into play. It provides a process to ensure success. However, there are some challenges.

What are the challenges?
A study by Jupiter Research showed the top challenges cited by decision makers in companies with $50 million or more in revenue. The top three challenges include the following.
51%: Improving usability of site
44%: Demonstrating ROI
44%: Understanding/influencing customer satisfaction

How can I overcome the top online marketing challenges?
By being ruthless in your pursuit of excellence. To start, you will need to structure a web analytics governance committee. This should include your search engine marketing strategist, social media marketing strategists, digital strategist, technology, creative and other groups. The executive leading this committee will help to define the strategic process.

How does the Web Analytics Governance process work?

Step 1: Establish the team structure and assign ownership and accountability.
Step 2: Gathering and presentation of facts.
Step 3: Data analysis and reporting.
Step 4: Predictive modeling and recommendations for improvement.
Step 5: Plan and prioritize initiatives.
Step 6: Optimization. Return to step 2.

Why is Web Analytics Governance important?
Web analytics governance helps to avoid hunches that can cost time, money and competitive advantage. The process improves an organization’s productivity and knowledge base thus delivering greater customer value and profitability. It will also help to inform business intelligence and will show you how you can engage customers to deepen relationships and improve satisfaction.

How do I ensure success?
Teamwork. The dynamic interaction of your web analytics committee will mirror the social market space and empower your team to capitalize on real-time communication. With the introduction of real-time search, explosion of social media and mobile applications, marketers will need to develop a marketing mix that can evolve and adapt to changing technologies. This is achieved with a web analytics committee and a strategic digital marketing mix. And again, this happens with teamwork!

How does my marketing plan keep up with changing technologies?
What happens when real-time search interferes with the users’ experience? Where will they go to search for information? At Wayfinder we have our finger on the pulse of market trends and monitor them to ensure that your marketing performance doesn’t skip a beat.

For more information regarding web analytics governance and developing a digital marketing strategy, please call Luca Angeli at Wayfinder at 415-277-6968.

The Harvard Business Review’s article on “Competing on Analytics” affirms my own personal religion for data. The article highlights a few challenges that must be met in order to be competitive in today’s business climate. These challenges include the lack of leadership, the lack of intelligence on rising competition and the lack of meaningful data in general. With these three major riddles solved an organization can transform fragmented sources of data into a powerful strategic weapon. Let’s delve deeper into the challenges and why they are important.

Organizations require leadership to be able to act on usable intelligence. Roadblocks to look out for include: lack of a clear and well-defined focus from top-level leadership, a culture unable to embrace change, or simply not having the right people or technology to process data. If your organization exhibits any of these characteristics you’ll want to get them in order, and quickly. If any one department is not contributing to your source of strength it will be weakened, and all business and marketing efforts will be as well.

Organizations often lack the ability to exploit competitive data and turn it into intelligence. Rising global competition has intensified the need for proficiency in data analysis. Western companies are having a difficult time beating their Chinese and Indian competitors on product cost, but there’s hope. Analytics can provide the insights on which business processes should be optimized to squeeze greater performance where there’s slack. Furthermore, research can provide insights into your competitors’ pricing strategies and levels of inventory. Segmentation analysis can also provide the details to emphasize in your value-communication strategies. These insights and others can get your organization back on even playing ground with the competition.

Organizations may lack historical data sets. This basically sets them up for failure since decisions are not based on data insights. To paraphrase the old adage: history will repeat itself if it is not recorded for us to learn from. Mental modeling simply can’t compete with computer-aided modeling to inform business decisions. So take the guesswork out of decision-making and invest the time in developing a model that provides performance metrics that your organization can act on.

There’s a long road ahead. Analytics insights will only blossom after the following requirements have been satisfied: data strategy and sourcing, technology and time. Hang in there because it will take time to have enough data to be able to use it with confidence. “Presto e bene non vanno insieme.” Translation: Fast and good don’t go together. So be patient as the right type of data takes time to amass to support future forecasting.

But the time it takes is well worth the benefits. As Gary Loveman, CEO of Harrah’s frequently puts it, “Do we think this is true? Or do we know?” The correct answer is very comforting. And from there, the rest is all details in my book.

Here comes the soft sell. It always shocks me when a client says, “This is the first time that we’ve developed a completely integrated campaign that provides quantitative data.” This is obviously an accomplishment for them and we’re always glad to be a part of it. But at the same time, it is only the beginning; there’s always more to be done. And we’re always glad to be part of that too. The right process will allow you to take action, and measure your performance. Ready to discover the gaps? Looking to embrace data to inform business and marketing decisions? Let’s talk.

The state of the economy has created a new religion for marketing metrics. Financial analysts and marketers are working more closely together to determine what’s working and what’s not. It is this synergy in organizations that will deliver higher profitability by unlocking insights and putting them into actionable and measurable business objectives. This will then translate to better positioned new product introductions, pricing strategies and improved performance for future ad spends.

So why all the focus on analysis now? Well, according to Murphy’s Law, things will double in density every 18 months. By using this rule we can clearly see how adoption of marketing metrics will not be as forgiving this time around. Organizations simply can’t wait another 10 years to figure out new technologies, especially small businesses. And there are countless technologies to consider including the explosive growth of social media, mobile applications and Google Wave, launched on October 1, which seeks to redefine not only email but the entire web. Whew! Take that Microsoft!

Onward. For small businesses to survive this holiday season they will need to reach local customers in their own backyard. And to do this, they’ll need a geographically focused strategy using local search marketing.

Why local search? Well according to consumer and manufacturer trends we are seeing a surge in online activity as the year progresses. Global internet provider, ComScore, inc., reports 47% of local searchers visited a local merchant as a result of their online search. This highlights the opportunity for small business to rule and own their local markets by increasing their share of voice.

Here’s a quick list to get you started:

1. Define your business goals.
2. Develop a holiday season strategy.
3. Research and review historical data including on site, organic and paid search conversions to inform keyword selection.
4. Analyze web metrics to inform messaging strategy, content plan, sales funnels, geo targeting, and selection of distribution networks (i.e. Yahoo.com, local.com).
5. Test, learn, optimize and repeat. And, quickly!
   

If everything has been tagged properly, you can justify the budget by showing the potential return on ad spend (ROAS). The holiday shopping season is here now. Cyber Monday is only 54 days away (Nov 30) and gift card redemption season (All January) is right around the corner. It roughly takes 30 days to prepare to launch. So let’s get started now!